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Supreme Court dismisses plea for high court monitoring Dabholkar murder case
The Bombay high court last year stopped monitoring the Narendra Dabholkar murder case, observing that the trial has started against the five accused
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition by the children of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar who asked the top court to set aside a Bombay high court order that decided to stop monitoring the investigation into their father’s murder.
“High courts are not meant to monitor the investigation. The Bombay high court has monitored enough. It is a fair order refusing further monitoring… You cannot have monitoring (of criminal cases) at the pleasure of parties in the matter,” a bench of justices Vikram Nath and Satish Chandra Sharma said.
“Prima facie, we are not inclined to interfere with the high court order. The petition is dismissed,” the bench said, rejecting the appeal filed by Dabholkar’s children, Mukta and Hameed, challenging the high court’s April 18 order refusing to further monitor the investigation into Dabholkar’s murder who was shot dead at Pune in 2013.
The bench also declined to issue any further orders on investigating the larger conspiracy behind the Dabholkar murder and that of three other persons - activist Govind Pansare, Kannada poet MM Kalburgi and journalist Gauri Lankesh.
Senior advocate Anand Grover who appeared for the petitioner along with advocate Krishna Kumar told the court that there was clinching evidence to show a “common thread” behind the conspiracy to eliminate Dabholkar and the other three personalities
Grover reasoned that if CBI doesn’t investigate the larger conspiracy, it will result in punishment for those who pulled the trigger and not lead to the mastermind.
Additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati appearing for CBI said the trial was already at an advanced stage and most witnesses in the case have been examined by the trial court. She also underlined that the CBI was not even the investigating agency in the other three cases though there were common conspirators.
Turning to the petitioner, the bench said: “CBI is the best investigation agency we have in the country. How can you continue monitoring and keep pressuring them for the investigation to go on? The trial has commenced and 18 out of 23 witnesses have been examined.”
The bench added that the petitioner could provide any material related to the criminal case to the CBI which “may proceed in accordance with the law”.
In August last year, the Supreme Court told CBI to examine whether there was a larger conspiracy behind the four murders and if there was a common thread following the request from Dabholkar’s children.
Dabholkar, an anti-superstition activist was shot dead in Pune in 2013. Within two years, activist Govind Pansare was killed in Kolhapur in 2015 and the same year, Kannada scholar MM Kalburgi was murdered in Karnataka. In 2017, Gauri Lankesh was murdered outside her house in Bengaluru.
In its affidavit filed in response to the bench’s directions, the CBI said: “The murder of Govind Pansare is a connected case because of common conspirators. However, time and facts of the case are different.”
CBI underscored that monitoring the investigation into Pansare’s death will have no impact on the Dabholkar trial and suggested that there is no specific aspect on which any further investigation was required.
In its petition, the Dabholkar family pointed to the presence of a 2018 charge sheet where the Maharashtra anti-terrorist squad (ATS) recovered a large haul of ammunition and weapons from Nalasopara in Mumbai and underlined that the accused in the Nalasopara explosive case are the accused in the Dabholkar, Kalburgi and Lankesh case.
“In the investigation by SIT, Karnataka, of the murder of Gauri Lankesh, a diary was seized from one accused (Amol Kale) which revealed that 34 persons including the petitioners were on the hit list.” Kale and other accused in the four murders belonged to Sanatan Sanstha and the killings were of persons who were opposed to their ideology.
After taking over the case, CBI filed three charge sheets naming one Virendrasinh Tavade as the mastermind behind the killing of Dabholkar. The agency subsequently arrested Sachin Andure and Sharad Kalaskar as the shooters who executed the killing. Subsequently, the CBI named two other persons – advocate Sanjiv Punalekar and his assistant Vikram Vinay Bhave in connection with the conspiracy to murder.
